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Nat Lipstadt Oct 2014
October
2014

White Tissues

a thousand years ago
I had to do the shopping,
(short story, irrelevant)

angry, she,
always angry,
the ex called me careless+...
never quite remembered to buy
the no~color tissues,
white only, on the list ordered,
to avoid decorative mismatch clash
to not offend the bathroom guests's
sensibilities and refined fleshy color palettes,
and not to match thereby,
to unduly reveal
the mismatch of
two lives incompatible

she ****** the color from my life...

still now,
buy only
whitely, precisely,
always,
for the colors
in my life, of my life,
have now been returned to me

but they are best cherished,
visible inside, looking out,
painted filter to enhance,
to reveal!
the joys inherent
in the colors of a
refunded, redounding rebounding,
re-fined happiness internal

tissues white now employed
to store the joy colored in colorful tears,
re-defying re-de-finding-fining
the contrast
from the sorry past,
tears now in living color
shed while writing
this happy colored vignette

~~

Poems of Color

just too much
colorless cold,
to decamp to,
sit upon
the well weathered Adirondack throne
that is by his name,
by the cold waters,
now winter coated with
white-capped amber bluewaves
arriving jack-frosted on the lifeless beach

over this weathered sanctum,
natures supremacy reigns,
no matter the season or
his faulty human body's
weak reasoning,
it rules,
despite your frail poetic absence

but without your imposition
upon companion grey,
ensconced patiently
in that rarified atmosphere,
where and when
the sea sword
knights and inspires
the benign, benighted poet,

the human in him
frets and worries

where and when
ever again,
will nature deign to rain
poems upon him and his
winter-storaged writing organs?

the poet,
through his own
winnowy window reflection,
sees the sight of
the empty chair
between him and the sea air and
pondering more,
how shall he ever write
in the upcoming months of bleak?

through the frost-edged glass,
that old chair,
now sudden animated,
sensing his poetic human presence,
it turns toward its missing occupant,
voice aged reassuring,
speaking,
rhyming, 
it chants,
somber intoning...

"the poems writ yet still  undiscovered
but inscribed upon
my weathered slats and armrests,
have your name and no other,
therefore, there fired,
perforce,
they await your return,
come spring...come summer

now is the season of your hibernation,
we sense your fearful
winter forebodings and
speculations of consternation

know these unopened poems
are in fluid stored,
when you return
to our joint station,
we jointly will celebrate their
first day of naissance

you are charged,
you sole possess the
eye colored liquid visions
to see them
in the splinters and the breezes
through to their natural
childbirth revelation"


~~~

The Colors of Life Everlasting

blondes, brunettes, redheads,
the goodbye colors of the
street's tree choir members
and their leafy gowned denizens,

the good stiff chill upon them,
the selfsame chill,
in my anguished mind,
now hiding

those partial unclothed trees,
to me sing,
a comfort food song
heard above the quiet terror of the
noises of a winter's wind precursors

*"we green,
will be again
tho old,
spring green
is signature of our almost
life everlasting

once you wee were,
free green uncaring, youthful,
presumptuous presuming
that you too were,
in possession of
life everlasting

your colors
have changed too,
the process,
your process, different,
unlike our scheduled
rebirthing maintenance

yours a continuum slide,
with no reversal allowed,
no returning
you
to your first days of
crayon drawing youth,
unlike us,
a calculus of impossibility

we will turn young again
for many seasons more,
you,
never will

new eyes will feast upon our
glories refreshed
and love our
green visor shade cast

yet special are you,
the man-poet
who was chosen
by forces controlling,
to see and to tell,
witness-write of our annualization
during our overlapping
frames in time

when to the shade of hades
your physic sent,
our limbs, our leaves, our lives,
as-long-as-they-too-shall-last,
will cover thy remains and
give your poems back to the
sultry summer breeze from
whence they came,
and the colors
of your words
will be then
the colors
of your life everlasting"
10-26-14
Geof Spavins Sep 15
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/5156835/three-things/
(a poem of presence)

I could be your echo,
soft and steady,
a voice to lean against
when your own feels tangled.
We’d sit with the mess,
name the knots,
and breathe through the “what now?”
No fixing - just listening
until the fog thins.

I could take one thing,
just one,
from your crowded shelf of “later.”
Sort the papers,
fetch the milk,
untangle the tech that won’t behave.
You rest.
I’ll be your hands for a while.

I could make you a pocket of peace:
a walk, a poem,
a playlist that hums (like your favourite socks).
No agenda, just joy.
Just the reminder
that you are allowed to feel good
for no reason at all.
And if you’d like,
I’ll hold your name in prayer,
not as a fix,
but as a quiet flame.
A breath. A whisper.
A way to say:
you are not alone.
Amanda Kay Burke wrote https://hellopoetry.com/poem/5156835/three-things/ and made this challenge: Prompt is "write down three things you could offer to do for a friend that would really help them. Can you continue?
1.) Help throw garage sale so extra belongings can sell

2.) Smoke with somebody sick so they can get well

3.) Lend ear to listen to somebody who is going through hell
Prompt is "write down three things you could offer to do for a friend that would really help them"((
Anais Vionet May 31
(Maddy’s Music challenge:
“Write a poem based on three words from a song.”
Song: 'Words of love' by the Beatles 1964
)

I’m the harshest critic,
the truest of nonbelievers,
when words of love are used.
Soapy words will not deliver
so please stop trying to be smooth.

Don’t compare me to a summer’s day!
I know that’s from some Broadway play.

Waste not flattery’s rose
praise not my grace,
at least not to my face,
you’re better off praising my clothes.

Forgo sweetness, promise nothing
then you may be onto something
say it, straight up, I won’t faint
trust me, sir, I am no saint.
.
.
A song for this:
Words of love by the Beatles
kokoro Jan 5
Its been three months
her hairs long now
it cascades down her back
moving as she walks closer to me,
grows closer to me.
I wonder how she feels when she sees me,
how she feels when she sees me standing there waiting.
all i see is guilt, and on top of that shame.
shame how it ended the way it did,
guilt on the way i acted.
i don't know if i should speak,
and if i did,
if she would respond.
Stephen Knox Sep 2024
The creation of three comes from the two.
Binding together, in ways nobody knew.

The two become one thus making it three.
Transforming us into what it’s all meant to be.

Layer after layer, both near and afar.
Designing and building the conscious being you are.

The creator is give and the creation is take.
Combining us into this space that we make.

At odds with each other, always testing the space.
Making it look like it’s somehow a race.

Split down the middle, each has their side.
Entering the light from the dark times we hide.

This synchronic balance gets everything right.
Working together without causing a fight.

If we look at the all, we see one as a whole.
Knowing things above also happen below.
brandychanning Jul 2023
near three years, nearer to eclipses,
since last scribed here, been there
been loved, mistreated, done my share
of giving beatings, for the deserving,
never been any body’s biatch, no starting
now=ever.

men look at me, their eyes self-seducing,
a crook(ed) finger never summoned me
or any self respecting woman of valor,
with a full fist of words, a tongue sharper
than a deli slicer, if looks can ****, then
left my fair share of men on the Riviera,
the Hamptons, the Gold Coast, uptown
and way downtown where the cool kids
pretend play @ being prey hunting grownups.

ya, hear your thinking and it’s stinking,
my generated magno-electric vibes that’s
to blame, get this kids! never your fault
being whom you the actual F are, it’s their filters
that ***** their vision, their desires unbidden,
casual dispensed, thinking glory is theirs to share.

my road is not broken, there are signs even I spot,
when the man I crave is nearby, whose calm is not
couched cool, who doesn’t wear his possessions on
his sleeve, one who says adventure, yes, let’s go,
never saying when, for the only when is what both crave,
the loving of immediacy of “right now,” and add
to that pithy, my name, Brandy, acknowledging it’s
me, just me, he addresses and not some vision that
was crafted by others into an ideal,  and ‘because’ is
not sufficient but the perfect rationale, to trust what
your absent father called your “finely tuned instincts for
human finery, humans who eclipse ordinary stars

Ken Pepiton Mar 2023
An Opus, is this. Ai do declare, my works,
my opera, taken in to my self aware, soft
and gentle
- tame the framing window

- as the Mona Lisa in chalk, let it be
So, old man, he says to me, quoteless in my mind;
what do you think of the last linear affect, my wisht
effectual request, quest for reason to will. May we?
Taste, and see.
Firsts are always free,
there, sit and stare at a stump,

At the core, before first root, the door
to out is locked up tight, living is hard.
Imagine many hands making light function, easy
shift from one sense to another, by the numbers.
Seed time.
Long time and short time
long lingering memories, short sharp reminders,
freedom, heard touted for all its worth, cost free.
Live to realize you did believe,
this is what we get, on earth, within bounds.
-mindtimespace and maybe Aristotle's four causes.
-there never was a hell those are church merch.

Coknowing, as any reader by now must be, coded,
we know freedom is not free,
we lieve be, it had to be won,
and as with any war,
winning is never done,
until we all choose, yes, or no, use our reasoning,
learn to bolt the rye,
- sift bran and endosperm
life has many
layers, many folds in a flakey crust

set… listen, windy March time flooding prayers,
asking the boss of all the weather, for wisdom
to come
on the folk who rebuilt
on the new sand.
Knowing, high and mighty.
Storms mean less to a house built solid/
broken bricabrac and whatnots galore,
shattered anvilt'dust,
as in the wind, once used to sweep away,
my married mind, unwound, or un raveled
as may be the case, aitia, as accuser.
opera operates deus ex machina

Is he free,
is his task his alone?

May be, may not, who could say?

Science with its native usefullness,
knowing good and evil, as translated
from the idea,
pride.
- Whence comes contention
How much, how little, measured out
so my part and yours, balance, against
all our worth as ones among the many,

duty service warring minds, stealing time

let this be the palimpsest, recovered
from
radical actual chthonic stage
between the rootedly other wise, simpleton
sublime curios spirit, settling soul substance
hope imagined
image, form imagined in motion, in access

the unacknowledged legislator, impotent
in the wasteland populated by the poets past.

Empty of spite and venom, distracted ******,

the dread of failure, is past me now,
I have become a defender of the faith used
to form my bubble of being,
thinnest of walls, translucent lattice seen
closely enough
to discern the marvelous vision, not to be
lied about by one who never watched selecting
portals accept the usefull and abhor the useless.
-cellular ATP [pop]
Freedom
of the press, belongs
to the man, wombed or un,

Take the poet's high seriousness, this
which brings a self forward -duty
to try signaling-- here,
here, exactly, as
by standing acting out that light announcing danger,
dare not come too close.
Mime meme, mea culpa. {as we cross another's line}

"compulsive excavation
of the void inside"

Irinia, HelloPoetry.com said that,
- goodnight, as an exclamation
-  she said that right
Peace, be still.
And I, the old Weaver's fan,
known as Happy, whishing
wafting hot ai
r, we there, as my soup cooler
slips in a Disneyified whatifery
pool where wandering minds wait
recoknowning, groan growing,

silliest little diamond miner
of 'em all… so stupid, he's cute.

And in that way, the hero being
generated, on the pattern
handed down, to be seen

when you gaze in to your
close kin's eye and see co-known,
we were made
for this,

Klang, that Zildjian once again!
Exclamation, thus marked, calls
attention in the mind's contextual
effectuality, becoming
realized,
instant by instant, at first glance,
whose enemy am I, is the game,
truly
win or lose?

End act one.

Act two. In realized ever after that

The Internet exists, and we were here,
to help announce it,
then we made decisions, to make this.
-Opus

Spiking hopes up, we are among
the first billion mind text to text artforms
to survive
the transition to whenever next insight
sets us right, functional, operational
points,
in reality, centers, of shapes.
- of things in mindtimespace
In this medium, this is my realm,
your role,
is yours to define, any time, think ahead,
see if this goes there, what if it does.
Read'm and weep.

Then what do you do? Ever being after
learning enough to come this deep
when
time arrives.

Short time and long time,
made some mutual sense, muse using me,
and me,
I wished for this, that's so,
I asked to know the meaning of certain things.
I third in to knowing grown, as a tiny we
takes form of information in words rye,
or reasonably surprising to confess,
you know, McLuhan says yet, you know
nothing of my work. Awry.
Successfully making pasta with home-milled, bolted flour depends upon an appreciation of the interplay among grain selection, mill settings and bolting equipment. Failing to consider these factors increases the likelihood of making a weak dough and pasta that breaks when cut and/or cooked. Although one can mask the impact of a weak dough by choosing a more forgiving pasta shape (e.g., creating cavatelli instead of making tagliolini or tagliatelle), knowing the interaction of grain, mill and sieve will help you to create the pasta you envision. Google it.
Certainty is madness, has been resaid
in many ways, all the same, nothing changes

until the bubble of all we call awesome, pops.

AND Boom, it's Art for art's own sake, and me,
for my own, as we two witness, here,
this has already happened this once,

upon, operating the game, shame is left
in your -wherever,
compost it, tell the world.

I made nothing of myself.
I made something else, and then
I made U,
my qwerty symbolic friendly stat set,
bound near-letter
to peeling layers from this particular pearl,
today- in the post Everybody Knows, Cohen
sacred making idea in other words
sacrificial artifice,
offering unto that
super positioned we, humanity has set aside,
holy
holy
hoho ** green giant, ma jones, whole earth

Stewart Brand, right worthy former breather,
with us to this day, in word, and you know,
wheres words take us,
a we spirtitually untied, we
these days, depend to the nth degree,
on real estates in mindtimespace, literaturely.

Ben mentioned, awesome,
I did not catch the reference, I see,
I said a third I line pattern stylized me.
I see, I said for the nth dime degree
Phryigian Liberty Lady.{PLL} appearing

on the silver dimes entangled in the web,
of what Bacon knew or did not know,
when he invested with Madoff.
I know.
He did not write the sonnets.
Marking timestretched most point. Here.
right passing the point.
We imagine everything, am I right?
Line upon line, messaging any thing reader
ready, right now,
this is not the act, no novel form
of a sliver of if,
this is not that.
this is vid licet, per missions taken
for granted, as
meaning clearly I believe I have the right to say
reflectively

I know a whole
other story, new to you, but not to many readers
you were,
in previous experiences
in poetry, and books
for lievers being brought online
in due time.

Ever after that. You may, pause, and imagine roses.

Act three Realized mentally

At the end, it is mental ascent, we do form,
in conformity to the commonest of codes,
Berners Lee's Hyper-code, as manifested in hopes,
of artists,
so called by all who knew them, the framing crews
at Aaron Brother's Art Mart Penny-Frame Sales
events for staff, same
kind of crew glue,
as seen any where,
apron clad, badged, same grinning, that's me,
I did that, too. Grind,
locked in midnight restocking

Walmart, yep, #26, Van Buren, Arkansas.

Target on… Cuyamaca, Santee, San Diego New
Trolley End, right, future planned in action..,

I got black dirt cred back to Moses, m'friend,
I am as full blood American as may be by imagining
I am a Union man, distant scion of a soldier
who had a son prior to dying, around 1781.

In the war for freedom of the press, yes, Ben,
my childhood proverb provider, reminds us all,
owning the use
of money is better than owning
money.
Freedom
of the press, belongs
to the man, wombed or un,
the awesome asexual after all we know,
who who followt Jeffy, and yet did not die in shame,
I mean
after all, we know, we think, why any might
be
so tempted to throw in a sorted *** scene
to envoke audience reaction
by invoking spelchekian mastermind.
Freedom
of the press, belonging
to the man, wombed or un,
who has access to HelloPoetry, past all the 502s.

Free, if you will. No yoke. Seat of y'panting/
Ai aiai

This ain't showbiz. It is one act enacting another.

A writing being ready and read, at once, later.

SO, I bet the Diamond Farm.

Friendly local game, envision a vision of your own,
drawn from what you know is good, for food.
Good idea, fishing for everything.
Got one,
governing meat eaters,
keep your gun, pay a meat tax, by
buying a deer tag, which you may use
or put in to a deer harvesting pool.
That pool then gets used
to pay hunters and packers.

Living forests allow humane behaviour.
Be having the right to use the proteins,
- but you must pay the butchers
- as you might pay yourself
- for the gutting and skinning and all

tastes may be acquired,
that is a power, that sense, too any thing
taste
at first, too bitter

resending hate hate hate, thought caught,
infecting all who take free time to think.
Sweet persuasive, tiny
taste, ah
any, ha, may take a direct object status
in any story, told to gurgling gut gladly
reminding us, aha,
food is not imperitive, o see, im per it
-this instant, soon, however, bread's a must
imperit
ive found myself a happy enough
moment,
dopplering blue jay flies by, says Hi.
- I read myself into the game, and call

Back to Bellow, he told of a fellow in Spain,
who spoke of nudists on the public transportation
in Frankfurt, so, I slip in time slime, no crime time,
¿when was that,
in the era Bellow was an adult in,
when I was just a kid… living in those days?

Poker on the Diamond Farm, in the dust,
we swept into play in the after you believed,

what-did-you-get-to-do game?

I got old. After a while.
Actively participating in the spirit
of my time.
And most of my future happened as I did,
we happened to be here,
at this time, reading.
An opus set to end, when the contrabassoon
blow ai ai ai.

Curtain.
Art  for no other reason, than this makes me happy, and no one dies.
Elizabeth Kelly Feb 2022
Rachel coughs in the room next to me
A mattress on the floor cradling her softly
As the air mattress beneath me dies a slow, excruciating death.

(I chose this for myself -
Rachel has a bad back, remember;
My own back groans in protest.)

We moved you from Cleveland to San Diego -

three days of driving

- Rachel and my competing energies warring silently the entire time,

Both wishing

The other

were not there.

I reflect on the number:

3.

It’s your brother’s jersey number
And everywhere in your mother’s house
(Ten years now since he chose
To leave this earth)

We three kings,
The magic number,
Prime.

A crowd.

Its my birth order
Three of Five
-the middle child-

Guess I’ve always been
The odd man out.
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